Growing Your Business

Keeping the Customer Satisfied

Marketing to Mall Managers

(Part 2 of 2: Click here to see part 1)

As sweeping contractors there are a number of selling points you can emphasize that will maximize your opportunity to get the contract. For example, you will have a greater opportunity to retain customers and obtain new ones if you know and address the client's alternatives to hiring a sweeping firm.

There are four methods of maintaining a parking lot. Any one, or a combination, of these methods are the choices available to the property owner or property manager. When you sell your services, especially to a company which doesn't currently use a sweeping service, my advice is to point these out, along with the advantages/disadvantages of each. If you are aware of both the advantages and the disadvantages of each, you will be able to use this information to your best advantage in selling the prospect on using your company for sweeping.

First, the property manager can do nothing to clean the parking area, although this is an alternative which is not acceptable to many, if any, property owners or property managers. Second, an on-site person, usually part time, can be hired to perform minor maintenance and pick up papers and litter from the parking lot. Third, the landscaper can keep the parking lot clean, and fourth, a sweeping contractor can be hired. Perhaps the best, and most frequent choice, is to combine option two, the part-time minor maintenance person, with option four, hiring a contractor.

To do nothing is least costly, obviously, but these days it is almost never acceptable to the shopper and tenants. If the parking area is always littered, there will be some people who will quit shopping there. Hiring a part-time person to police the lot has a definite advantage in that it provides daily or every other day litter control. Scheduling can be either before the shopping center opens or late morning to late afternoon. Because an on-site maintenance person is visible to the shoppers and tenants, it also creates goodwill.

The disadvantage is that this person can only pick up bottles, cans and bigger pieces of paper, and the policing process is slow and tedious. In most cases, the work must be supplemented by a sweeping service anyway. When selling your services to a property manager with a part-time maintenance person, emphasize what your equipment can do that cannot be accomplished by hand and how it can do the job more cost-effectively. For example, it doesn't take very long for asphalt and a shopping center's inside floors to begin wearing if the small gritty dirt isn't removed from the parking area.

Hiring the landscaping company to clean the parking lot will work well only if the landscaper has a sweeper, which makes them a competitor. Otherwise, landscapers are on-site only a couple of times a week, so there will be days when no one is policing the center. If they don't have a sweeper then most, if not all, of their work is done by hand, which won't bring the same results and costs more than hiring a part-time maintenance person. Also, if someone's primary business is landscaping, how good a job will they do with sweeping?

Hiring a parking lot sweeper has its advantages and drawbacks. The advantage is that the sweeper can clean a wider area better and more cost-effectively than can be done by hand. Another advantage is that additional services can be offered. The disadvantage is that service is limited to the time of day the lot can be swept - usually night hours - and the lot can get dirty between sweeps.

Owners and property managers have different maintenance priorities based on personal preferences and their short and long-term goals for the center. Usually, however, their priorities are safety, preserving the physical life of the property and appearance. Parking lot sweeping directly impacts safety and appearance, and indirectly impacts preserving the property's physical life.

Additional services are also increasingly seen as being important. Besides the roof, parking lots top the list in needing more ongoing maintenance because of their use, visibility, and accident potential. Consider selling a complete maintenance program of sweeping, striping, and asphalt repairs. Sell the concept of how preventive maintenance is less expensive than patch-up maintenance. Confirm that you will notify the property manager about any maintenance problems: lights out, windows broken, potholes, etc. Sell them on how any of your extra services meet the needs of shoppers and tenants.

Property managers in most areas of the country also need snow removed from the lot and sidewalks in winter. Especially in areas where it doesn't snow often, it is a minor emergency when snow accumulates in the parking lot. If you are in the northern tier of our country consider adding snow plowing, the blowing or shoveling of snow off the sidewalks, and/or de-icing the sidewalks using salt or other chemicals.

In centers where the budget won't handle seven day sweeping, and where the distance to your accounts will allow it, suggest that your personnel collect papers and litter between sweeps. Other ways to prove your professionalism to prospects is to confirm up front that you have liability and Workers' Compensation insurance. Name the property owner and property manager as additional named insureds and let them know that you will submit the Certificate of Insurance the day the maintenance contract is signed.

Work with the center manager to find the best sweeping hours, always before the majority of the shoppers come onto the center and usually before 8:00 a.m. Find out if noise complaints have been a problem in the past. To minimize noise, don't use any more throttle than you need to get the job done.

If the account doesn't provide a transfer site for litter, make sure they know that you dispose of the litter in an approved manner. Another factor of reliability is to implement some system to show when you have swept. One answer is to send a postcard to the property manager each month with dates and times of sweeping; another is to leave a sticky-backed note on the manager's entrance door whenever you sweep.

Make certain that your drivers are conscientious in how they operate the sweeper. Don't leave room for tenants or customers to claim that the sweeper was practicing for the Indy 500 in the parking lot! No other vehicle stands out more than a 'speeding' sweeper.

By understanding your clients' needs and developing a strategy to meet them, you can develop an effective business retention program, while at the same time growing by gaining new customers. Satisfied clients become long-term clients and that ensures a profitable business for both of you.

Richard F. Muhlebach is president of TRF Management Corporation in Bellevue, WA. TRF manages shopping centers and office buildings in the Northwest and Alaska. Muhlebach has co-authored Shopping Center Management and the Managing and Leasing Commercial Properties series.

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